Although I expected something different when I clicked on the icon for "****." I was expecting that the invention of a perfect, fully-immersive virtual reality would result in humanity deciding to indulge every hedonistic, sexual pleasure until they ignored the physical world and simply died.

Yeah, those all suck, but the real problem is if power isn't re-established to the world's nuclear power plants before the backup generators run out of fuel. There are something like 40 plants in this country alone which store their spent rods just like at Fukushima. Without power, they'll all melt down. That's my understanding anyway. You won't be much worried about your internet at that point.

I've always had trouble beleiving the "hostile alien invader" thing for a couple of reasons. Even when presented by brilliant people like Steven Hawking (when he said that aliens visiting Earth could be as negative for us as the arival of the conquistadors was for the native americans.)
...

1) They are as violent and selfish as we are. Possible, but how likely? The only thing we can safely assume is that their history and point of reference has nothing to do with our own experience. ... They may not necesarilly have minds or biology geared towards conquest. Their entire value system may be as alien to us as their bodies and technology. It's exceedingly self centered and arrogant to assume that visitors would operate with the same motivation that our more primitive and violent ancestors had.

Right, but they could also have a value system that places no value at all on alien (to them) life forms, or treasure sadism as the highest form of virtuous living, or not have an ethical system at all, etc.

Also, even if they have no ill intent, they might be loaded with diseases or parasites or accompanied by other creatures (pets, livestock, beasts of burden, or whatever) that would wipe us out (all part of what Hawking had in mind, I suspect), just as Europeans were.

2) They need rersources and can only get them over our dead bodies. This part I CAN call bullshit on. Here's why:

Any of these things can be found in great abundance elsewhere. Asteroids, moons, nebulea. Basically they could be poaching any resource they need through un-inhabited space and never even have to interact with the locals on our little blue ball.

Again, excellent points, but don't forget the most important resource Columbus and his band of marauders found: humans. Not only a plentiful resource for agricultural labor and domestic help, but recall that the Spanish (particularly Columbus's brother) abducted huge numbers of women and especially young girls and either sold them into sex slavery or used them that way themselves.

"Ah!", you say, "the aliens won't do that. They may not even reproduce sexually, let alone be attracted to humans, or be as morally depraved as those scumbags!"

Well, a) they could still enslave us for other purposes, and b) every movie and TV series ever made about aliens, duuude!

What's really likely to save us from possible alien enslavement is that the universe is so damn huge. As you point out, there nothing that special about this planet's resources (that we know of, at least) that would give aliens any reason to travel the generations it would likely take them to get here, at a minimum, even if they somehow found out that this place existed.

Regarding the OP: It's not that surprising, that these ridiculous notions gain some small traction. Cult of death end of the world stuff is written into some religions/cults.I suspect emotionally, it's in some ways easier to dwell on a definitive endpont, than tangle with the idea that individuals come and go, and things keep on trucking.lol astrology. lol lots of silly ideas.

Last edited by bobyclumsyninja; 12/03/2012 8:31am at .
Reason: Phooooooone

I'm aware doom wasn't on the MayanMenu, just saying that this doom is laid pretty heavily on kids by the churches here (insert joke here). Death worship is common, though people don't usually think of it in those terms.

Camping's Christian-centric apocalypse (from its Biblical source) and the claims of a Mayan one (from archaeological sources) are both are based on subjective astrology and numerology...meanings and numbers pulled out of thin air. How is that different (or less absurd) than ancient maps of monsters beyond the boundaries of the sea?

Astronomy, which is based on humble observation of the heavens (without the hubris of assigning some concrete or mystical meaning to them), recognizes the chaos and order of the Universe's (at least current) expansion, and continues to defy astrology which (quite ignorantly) views the Universe as a mere clockwork. The trouble is that if the Universe were a clock, no human on earth (including the Maya) could claim to know it's purpose.

Astronomy (again, not conjecture or interpretation but simply watching the heavens) tells us there is no such thing as a real "galactic alignment"...a galaxy is never in the same place, orientation, or plane twice. Galaxies are not carefully spinning around one another in an ordered fashion....they are all violently hurtling into deep space, colliding with one another, fizzling out, exploding, or being sucked into the void of the supermassive black holes around which they swirl.
Compared to the vision of the Milky Way violently collapsing into the singularity at its center billions of years from now...what mere "galactic alignment" (if something like it did occur) could compare? Yet every ignoramus who's watched a TV special lately is sure to tell me or you that "something's happening". Bullshit.

And for all their mysticism, the Maya didn't vanish from some world-ending cataclysm...they destroyed their civilization of city-states because of their obsession with warriorism and scorched earth warfare. What they left behind was one of the Earth's oldest heliocentric astronomical clocks. It would not be until the 16th century that Copernicus created a scientific, heliocentric model of essentially the same thing.

Right, but they could also have a value system that places no value at all on alien (to them) life forms, or treasure sadism as the highest form of virtuous living, or not have an ethical system at all, etc.

Also, even if they have no ill intent, they might be loaded with diseases or parasites or accompanied by other creatures (pets, livestock, beasts of burden, or whatever) that would wipe us out (all part of what Hawking had in mind, I suspect), just as Europeans were.

Did you read Sphere by Michael Crichton, too? Man, it's a great book and he talks all about the various possibilities a realistic alien encounter would be like. A lot of it matches up with what you're saying. Creatures that may have cultures so different from ours that it's literally impossible for us to communicate in any meaningful way. Aliens that don't die and thus have no concept of death and therefore no restriction on killing. Or some otherwise benign feature that somehow interferes with what we require to live. Like exhaling cyanide gas or disrupting our brainwaves.

Did you read Sphere by Michael Crichton, too? Man, it's a great book and he talks all about the various possibilities a realistic alien encounter would be like. A lot of it matches up with what you're saying. Creatures that may have cultures so different from ours that it's literally impossible for us to communicate in any meaningful way. Aliens that don't die and thus have no concept of death and therefore no restriction on killing. Or some otherwise benign feature that somehow interferes with what we require to live. Like exhaling cyanide gas or disrupting our brainwaves.

It's all fascinating stuff to think about.

No, I haven't read it. Just reflecting on how Europeans killed Amerinds off, and on the fact that aliens could be as different from us as we are from insects or much more so. That's one of the huge imaginative failures of Roddenberry et al and of George Lucas. Way too many of the aliens are much too similar to humans, and the frequency with which cross-breeding and sexual attraction between alien species / beings from different planets occurs is just stupid (though I get why they want scantily clad Carrie Fisher or green Angelique Pettyjohn onscreen). I'll have to check the Crichton book out; it sounds interesting.